


Substitutions

by laEsmeralda



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-20
Updated: 2013-10-20
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:10:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1011697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laEsmeralda/pseuds/laEsmeralda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spending time with Inara makes Simon feel less homesick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Substitutions

After six months on Serenity, I am homesick for a home River and I never had.

Before I met Mal, I’d never realized our true lack of family. It shames me to relate to him sometimes as a son to a father, to want to be protected by him, because he is not so much older than me. And I’m ashamed because watching him captain this ship, fierce in his protection of the whole crew, makes me hard.

Before I met Inara, I’d never pondered our lack of mothering. Mal calls her _whore_ to keep her at distance from his own weakness, but she is truly Madonna and Magdalen and everything else that a real woman can be. He should worship her in all her aspects. I sadly, selfishly, count myself lucky that he doesn’t. I try to make it up to her.

River and I were raised by wolves it seems. Not for the absence of manners that people speak of when they use the phrase, but for emphasis upon survival of the fittest. There was the appearance of indulgence in our upbringing, with careful reward for performance and connections well made, but there was no genuine warmth except between River and me. To our parents, we were what we did.

Tonight, I make my way to Inara’s shuttle as discreetly as always. She refuses to be examined in the infirmary. I don’t blame her. There isn’t a member of the crew who doesn’t watch for the slightest slip of her clothing, whether he or she realizes it or not. No one can help it, not even me. Ironically, I might be the only one who has seen her fully unclothed.

She is tense tonight. “I should tell you first, I have some bruises,” she says, softly. “I agreed in advance.” She struggles to meet my eyes. “I’m fine.”

I gesture to the bag. “This can wait. You have three days until the next certification.” I never say that I wish I didn’t have to examine her here, on the bed where she holds me.

She shakes her head once. Definitively. 

Her robe is plain, rough silk, and it covers her from jaw to ankles. I turn my back while she lies down; under the physician’s pretense, I am already busy, opening my bag, and arranging the portable light and instruments until she is ready. 

I am quick, efficient but never ungentle. I observe the bruises on an ankle and the outside of her thighs. A dark thumbprint shows on the inside of a soft knee; I resist the urge to soothe it.

“All’s well,” I say, moving to dispose of the test kit and stripping off my gloves. I take a few moments at her terminal to scan a slide and key in the certification.

I hear the rustle of her covering up again. “Thank you, Simon,” she says, her voice stronger now. 

“You’re welcome, of course.” I stand and close my bag. This is a moment for hesitation. I don’t want any less tonight what I come here for on other nights when there’s no certification due, but the day has been hard on her. If I hesitate too long, she’ll feel pressured. I turn to smile at her, to take my leave.

“Don’t you _dare_ go,” Inara says, darkly. 

I notice that she isn’t wearing lipstick. In fact, she has entirely washed her face. I’ve never seen her without cosmetics before. I shift my bag to my left hand and say, “I thought you might…”

“Stay.” She moves away to make tea. It is a tea for soothing, to calm insomniacs like us. Since River began bunking with Kaylee more often, playing at sisters, I am allowed this luxury a few nights each week. It wears against my learned stoicism, but I’m happy to pay the price.

I consider what I want to say while she moves gracefully through the preparation and pours our cups. “I didn’t think you could be more beautiful,” I say, my mouth strangely dry. I reach over to rub my thumb across her cheek. “But you are.”

She smiles a little sadly. “Only a man who doesn’t love women can say such a thing without lying.” 

“I’m not a lover of women, but I love women,” I retort, smiling back at her. We are very frank with one another. I’m not so frank as to say just how wrong she is--Mal would lose his last shred of control if he saw her like this, if she’d risk it... but the two of them are obstinacy and resolve personified. I sip tea and consider giving a hint against my own interests. “Only a man who doesn’t want to know a woman is she truly is _prefers_ her painted,” I find myself saying.

One dark eyebrow quirks up. She doubts me only because she doubts herself. The vulnerability, the youth of her, her impishness and freshness, reflect her core. The artifice, all her knowledge, the necessary and desired manipulations are what she does, not what she is. Unlike my parents, I know the difference.

“I have no need flatter you, Inara. You’re stunning, just you. It’s the truth.” I know from her expression that I must be careful. She loves me. I love her, and I have said so. I must never, ever, cross a line such that she falls for me. Her heart deserves to beat at least a full year without being broken by another. I sip my tea and search for something less personal to say, delivered with a playful smile. “But I do understand that a warrior mustn’t take the battlefield without impressive armor.” 

She inclines her head gracefully and the dangerous moment passes. We finish our tea and the small news of the day.

It falls to me tonight to continue our ritual. I cross the room to fold down the covers in the manner I’ve learned from her, and she clears away the tea. 

I’m always conscious of her eyes on me as I undress. She doesn’t have my natural constraints and the interest I sense is not imagined. At the same time, I can’t help but feel a little pride that this woman, who sees so many famous and moneyed men, admires my body. Some nights, I feel her trembling, and I wish things were different with me. Then again, if I wanted her that way, she would never have invited me to be here. It is a good thing that the rough man, the one she chose for today, has sated her. I wonder, a little guiltily, if he looked like Mal and if he paid in contraband. I slip into bed and wait for her, warming the chilled sheets. 

Inara reduces the number of candles by a precise two-thirds and unpins her hair. The plain robe rustles to her feet. I am a lover of art, if not women, and as always, she catches my breath in my throat. If I ever have real clay beneath my hands again, I will be compelled to shape her, trying hopelessly to capture her essence, to keep her with me.

Fascinated to watch her in movement without clothing, I think to ask her to refresh the incense, but I don’t disturb the easy silence. I’ll learn her by slow degrees instead. Last week, I discerned that as sleek and soft as she appears as a woman of leisure, she is in command of a martial art practiced in complete privacy. I’ve glimpsed the shimmer of a scar repaired well, but not as well as I would do it for someone like her. I don't tell her that I've uncovered such secrets. 

Best of all, her poise changes ever so slightly around me, she relaxes, and I see the instinctive grace that drew the guild’s interest. 

She slides in beside me and we cradle one another. Her feet are cold—the feet of a human, not a goddess—and I shift to warm them on my legs. She giggles apologetically.

There is something primal and good about falling asleep with my face against Inara’s breasts, enveloped in her unperfumed scent. From her deep sigh of contentment I know that she, who never actually _sleeps_ with a client, needs this as much as I do. Sometime in the night, we will have shifted, and I’ll hold her as she is holding me. The chime of her alarm will wake me before the rest of the ship, but for the next few hours, we are only for each other.

She is not my sister. She is not my mother. And she is not my lover. She is home.  
*******


End file.
